Killing Eva (14 page)

She glanced back to the road in front of her. At the solitary figure walking towards her. It was a man, well built – the kind of physique Eva liked, leanly muscled and strong. He had a slightly limping gait but was walking quickly, as if he had somewhere to be. His head was down, he seemed focused on the pavement. And then he looked up.

He began running towards her at speed.

Eva stumbled.

It was Leon.

Her heart was pounding. How had he found her, yet again?

She had to get away. Skidding to slow down, Eva swerved right and ran up the middle of the road, avoiding the pavement lined with walls or bushes she could be dragged behind. She could hear his pounding feet approaching and, even with the limp, she knew he could catch her. She swerved left sharply, back onto the pavement, and heard him swear and follow; his ankle was clearly giving him trouble. Maybe she could use that. The house was still too far away for her to outrun him. Inevitably, the pounding tread was coming closer. She stopped suddenly and turned, braced herself, faced him.

‘What do you want?' she shouted, as he came to a stumbling stop several paces away from her. He wasn't even out of breath.

‘I want your phone,' he said firmly and took two huge steps towards her, grabbing the front of her running shirt as he moved, pulling it tight so it trapped her shoulders and arms and then hustling her up against a wall. He started patting her down as if searching for it.

She fought him. He cursed at her. She managed to free an arm and hit him on the side of the head but Leon didn't even flinch. Instead, with his free hand, he slapped her back.

Eva stopped moving and stared at him breathlessly. Something changed in his face. The same thing she had seen in the park.

She was breathing heavily, hiccupping almost. But she was nowhere near tears.

He had stopped moving, he seemed frozen. But he hadn't let her go.

‘Back off,' she hissed, into his face so close to hers.

‘I can't, Eva.' The voice was oddly hollow.

‘Why?'

‘I just can't.'

‘Are you ever going to tell me what happened back in South America?'

The question took him by surprise. He dropped his grip on her shirt. Eva was released but didn't move away.

‘I don't understand,' he said quietly.

‘You switched sides. Or you seemed to. Perhaps that was where your loyalties lay all along.'

He moved a half pace away but his eyes never left hers. ‘I can't do this right now.'

The two continued to stare at each other. Eva was sweating, breathing heavily, Leon's dark features were stone-like. She waited for him to make the next move. Why doesn't he just break my neck and force me to give him the bloody handset, she thought. His standard modus operandi. But he just stood looking at her, as if he had no idea what to do.

TWENTY

Although Eva seemed
to slip back into the house unnoticed, she had a feeling someone within those immaculately decorated four walls knew she had left and now returned. She realised, as she quietly shut the heavy front door, that she had been relying on their powers of observation and relentless interference when she had set off out into the street to run. If she had not returned, they would have come for her. Right?

It hadn't escaped her that she was slightly elated, as well as shocked and scared, after the encounter with Leon. Finally, she had been able to ask him ‘why' – something that she had wanted to do since Paraguay. Not that he had given her a satisfactory answer. But sometimes asking the question was enough.

Eva glanced around the hall but still no one appeared. Perhaps this time they hadn't been watching. She doubted that somehow.

It briefly crossed Eva's mind to ask Irene whether she had any information on the night Eva had lost her memory; or about the possible truth in the visions she'd had in which she had seen Joseph Smith. If there had been surveillance to the extent Anya had indicated, they might be able to provide answers.

But Eva was hesitant. She still didn't know what had happened to her after Berghain, how much of it had been ‘her fault'. Or even what ‘it' was. And she still couldn't shift this lingering feeling of guilt. And shame. Irene had already said she thought Eva was reckless and perhaps she would just assume that situation was a natural consequence. Eva didn't want to see judgment in those steely eyes. And nor did she want to see evidence that Irene knew what else had happened – especially if it was something Eva would not want to hear.

She looked down.

In her hands, she held Leon's wallet. She had taken it from him – easily – when he'd had her in his grasp. Which was surprising. But then he had not seemed himself.

‘I thought you'd probably ignore instructions.'

A voice brought Eva back into the room like a slap in the face. Irene, who had apparently appeared from nowhere, was standing across the hall.

Eva lowered her hands to her side and held the wallet casually, as if it was hers.

‘I wanted some cigarettes.'

‘You don't smoke.'

‘Sometimes I just want one.'

Eva observed Irene looking at her running gear and felt herself caught in the untruth. That was stupid. She could lie better.

The light bulb in the hallway flickered above their heads, as if acknowledging the power struggle being played out below. Ostensibly, Irene was the one in control. But appearances could be deceptive. Both of them knew that.

‘I'm going to have a shower,' Eva said, as she crossed Irene's path and headed for the stairs.

Irene's response was so quick that Eva barely saw her traverse the floor. But within a split second Eva had her back to the banister – before she had even finished speaking the word ‘shower'. Although Irene was shorter and slighter than Eva, she had positioned herself on the step above, trapping Eva against the hard wood.

One hand was around Eva's throat. The grip was loose but tense.

‘What the hell are you doing?' Eva was taken by surprise but doing her best to disguise it.

Irene had never actually touched Eva before. Or physically threatened her. It was a development.

‘Don't
cross
me, Eva.'

Neither woman moved. Eva didn't struggle at all. Her main focus was regaining control of her breathing, which had accelerated instantly at the shock of such an unexpected attack. She squeezed the soft leather of Leon's wallet and it felt warm to the touch. She forced herself to remain still. If she struggled, Irene would only tighten her grip.

Finally, Irene began to let go. She released Eva's throat but Eva didn't break eye contact with her. For several seconds more the stand-off continued but neither made another move.

Then Irene's posture changed and Eva noticed her male assistant had appeared at the side of the room. Had he seen that?

‘It's Anya,' he said quietly.

Irene turned and left with him, without a backward glance, her sensible heels tapping quietly at the floor.

Eva turned around and leaned forward, using one of the steps to steady herself. It felt as if she had been holding her breath since Irene had touched her. Perhaps she had been. Every nerve ending was alight, almost burned through – there had been no break in the adrenaline since the contact with Leon only minutes before. And Sam before that. She was beginning to feel like a character in a video game.

She steadied her balance. There was no time to fall apart. She looked again at the wallet and jogged back up the stairs.

After she had taken a shower, Eva emptied the contents of Leon's wallet onto the bed. It contained nothing personal at all – business cards, receipts, a bank card and several platinum credit cards, one of which was not in his name. This did not surprise Eva; she knew he lived about six lives other than his own. She began sorting through the business cards, then stopped. Her eyes widened in surprise. There, amongst four other smart and well designed pieces of thickly expensive cardboard, was a name she recognised very well.

‘Dinner,' came a voice from the door, which flew open, banging against the wall behind it.

Eva froze. Should she gather up the contents of the wallet and attract attention to it, or should she leave it where it was and hope it went unnoticed? If it was Irene, it would have been pointless trying to hide anything but this was her assistant.

She stood up and turned round.

Grey, penetrating eyes met hers. He was holding a tray with food on it, a bowl that was steaming and a plate with bread and butter.

‘Soup,' he said.

She hated soup.

‘Thanks.' She almost smiled then stopped herself. There was no need to make him suspicious by suddenly turning on the charm.

‘Here,' she said, reaching out her arms, ‘I'll take it.'

He stepped forward and shoved it at her so the soup slopped over the edge of the bowl, then turned without a word, for the door.

Eva watched the door as it slammed.

A prime example of passive aggression. Or was it just aggression?

She disposed of the soup on the nearest flat surface and returned to kneel by the bed. She picked up the business card again; shivers travelled down her spine. It was Sam's business card.

Or, at least, it was Sam's name, but the branding was nothing like the organisation they had both worked for. It was minimal, black and slick. She flicked the card over. On the back, a single word ‘Veritas'.

She said it out loud and heard her voice echo back at her, slightly gravelly from the recently retreating adrenaline. Truth?

There was a second, similar card, although this one carried no name.

She put the cards on the bed and began looking through the receipts in the wallet. There was a cash point receipt for earlier that day for 200 euros from a machine near her hotel, as well as a receipt from what looked like a banking organisation.

The last receipt was for a train ticket to Perpignan in France. On the back of it were some numbers – which seemed to be tomorrow's date and a note of a time using the 24 hour clock. Presumably, the time and date of the tickets he had purchased. But where were the tickets?

Eva searched through the wallet but there was nothing else of interest.

She flicked on the bedside light for the second time in an hour. Eva absolutely hated sleeping in a room where the door didn't lock. Particularly in her current situation. She pulled back the covers and walked across the overheated room to check the chair she had propped up under the door handle to warn her of intruders.

She pushed and pulled it gently. Ok, still there.

She turned back to the bed. And that was when she saw him. Just a glimpse in the mirror. A talk, dark man standing in between the wardrobe and the wall.

He raised his hand.

She stared.

The room exploded around her.

‘Is she alive?'

Through the ringing in her ears, Eva could just make out concerned voices she recognised as Irene and her assistant.

She felt herself being gently lifted and placed on a softer surface. She opened her eyes, coughing. She tried to sit up. Someone pushed her back down.

‘Don't try to move.'

‘I'm fine,' she said, angrily pushing their arms away as adrenaline and panic began to surge through her body. She sat up. Apparently, the explosion she had experienced had been real. It had not destroyed the building but it had blown the right hand side away.

She looked warily at Irene, who was covered in dust and had a large, bloody gash across the top of her right arm which had torn right through the fabric of her suit. ‘What happened?'

‘Most likely a letter bomb. Old school. Only partially detonated. Otherwise, we'd all be dead.'

Eva looked back towards her bedroom, which was now above where she sat in the rubble. ‘Is that fire?' she said suddenly, noticing smoke and a red glow emanating from the glass.

The two others turned quickly and saw the same thing.

‘We need to get out of here now,' said Irene, quickly, starting to pull Eva to her feet. ‘Your room was undamaged. All your possessions are being retrieved. Take them and wait in that car over there.' She indicated a large black people carrier, perhaps the same vehicle Eva had been in before.

‘Don't we need to wait for the police?'

Irene gave Eva a long look.

‘Wait, Irene,' Eva said, as thoughts suddenly rushed into her head. ‘There was a man in my room, I'm sure there was. I saw him just before the explosion happened.'

‘What?' Irene was shocked.

‘A man, by the wardrobe.'

Then the second explosion happened.

It had taken her several days to form her conclusions on the single document that had arrived on that sunny evening. In her Hollywood Hills home, the analyst once again read over what she had prepared as her response to what had been revealed to her. It was audacious, in fact it was almost ridiculously simple – and that, she suspected, was what would give it the element of surprise. There was such power to be found in being underestimated.

The document had recorded a network of transactions that had taken place – and continued to take place silently and without note. These transactions were all focused on the economy of a single country: the UK. Not too big and not too small.

They had been designed to take advantage of the economic progress of that state over the past 50 years, everything from privatisation of utilities such as water and gas to the principles of free market capitalism that had reduced state intervention and sought to let the market define its own winners and losers. The reality was that this approach had created a market where wealth was concentrated in the hands of the few. And that was what had allowed this – she hesitated at what to call it in her mind – … this ‘plan' to be put into action.

You offer everything for sale. You risk it ending up in the hands of an undesirable owner.

It was really as simple as that. Everything that the UK had turned over to a profit motive, everything it had sold off, privatised or set up as a private enterprise in the first place was essentially for sale to anyone with the resources, no matter where those resources came from or what the motivation for purchase was. Despite the fact that the infrastructure of the country still relied on those entities, they had still been offered for sale to private buyers. And if the powers that be thought they could stop the buyers being a single entity by setting up regulators, committees and ombudsmen then they were sadly mistaken. Anonymity and disguise could be acquired for any entity. And they were essential for surreptitious control.

Although this particular entity was one that she doubted the powers that be were even aware of. It was faceless, it was nameless – and its reach was unchecked.